A motion estimation engine (MEE) is a module used in video compression systems for producing compressed video streams. Motion estimation involves analyzing previous and/or future frames to identify matching or closely matching blocks that can be used in other frames without the need for separately storing them each time. Motion vectors pointing to the acceptable matches are then stored in place of the blocks. Unfortunately, motion estimation processes can consume excessive processing resources in identifying matches for an entire video stream file. Thus, improved approaches would be desired.